WIKE MAKING. 143 



Champagne vaults, and have all the appliances in the 

 shape of good cellars, casks, fermenting vats, and presses, 

 to handle the grapes of half the neighborhood, besides the 

 product of their own vineyards of about 100 acres, which 

 produced about 170 tons of grapes last season. The 

 grapes I saw made into wine there were very fine indeed, 

 and should produce a superior article. Mr. Bricaut, 

 their present wine-maker, acquired his experience in 

 France, and he certainly makes fine sparkling wines, as 

 the many awards taken by their products in this country 

 and abroad, abundantly testify. From statistics fur- 

 nished me by Mr. Clark Bell, the Vice-President of the 

 Company, the sales of the Company, during the 

 last year amounted to about $105,238, of which 

 $78,192 were still wines, $24,702 sparkling wines, 

 $2,343 in Brandy. The price paid for grapes ranged 

 from Ic. to 4c. per pound, of which Isabellas rank 

 lowest, then Concord, then Catawba, then Diana, lona, 

 and Delaware highest. Their best wines are used mainly 

 for Champagne, and the majority of other wine sold is 

 Sweet Catawba, a wine I do not much admire. I am 

 convinced, however, that a very superior still wine could 

 be made from the grapes grown there. The vineyards 

 are mostly let to men who work them on shares. They 

 need good, red-wine grapes to make Clarets and Ports, 

 and to judge from a sample of Nortons I tasted, which 

 had been made there, I have no doubt they could be made. 

 The Pleasant Valley Wine Co. is located at Eheims, a 

 few miles back from Hammondsport. Mr. Jules Masson, 

 an old acquaintance whom I met at Cincinnati in 1869, 

 then in charge of the Longworth Wine House, is Super- 

 intendent of the cellars here. Mr. D. Bauder is Secretary 

 of the Company. I paid but a flying visit to their cellars, 

 and could not look around much, but saw enough to con- 

 vince me that the two Companies are worthy rivals. From 

 notes furnished me by these gentlemen I gathered that 



